Although I hear there’s something going on in America later which might be worth watching, if you watch nothing else today, check this groundbreaking documentary out. I’m not sure how I missed it last night, but it seems that the Beeb has at last screened a history of the disability rights movement, as told by disabled people ourselves. I can’t stress how important this programme probably is: while it isn’t perfect – such documentaries never are – it seems the mainstream media has at last made an effort to engage with an aspect of culture almost completely ignored until now. As the doc itself admits, until fairly recently people with disabilities were shut away and hidden from the rest of society. Yet with programs like this we crips are at last getting to tell our side of the story; there’s even a pretty good explanation of the Social Model, and DAN even gets referenced too. While it may be rather overdue, the revolution we were hoping the 2012 Paralympics would bring about having never really appeared, I certainly hope this is only the first of many programmes which engage properly with disability as both a social and political phenomenon.
why it isn’t perfect ?
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I felt it could have given more detail about things like the Direct Action Network.
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